The killing of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl, shot dead in the
playground of her school in southern Gaza yesterday, threatened to
undermine a tentative truce after Hamas blamed the Israeli army and
retaliated by firing mortars into a Jewish settlement.

Noran Iyad Deeb was shot in the face as she lined up for assembly at
the UN-run school in Rafah refugee camp. A second girl was hit in the
hand.

Palestinian officials blamed Israeli troops. The UN said it could not
identify the source of the gunfire for certain but that shooting was
heard from the direction of Israeli posts in the militarised border
area. The army said it was investigating.

A few hours after Noran´s death, Hamas fired several mortar shells
into the Neve Dekalim settlement in Gaza, damaging a building.

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas´s military wing, told Reuters that
the mortars were fired in retaliation for the death of Noran, who was
the fourth child in two years to have been killed inside UN schools
in Gaza refugee camps. All were believed to have been shot by Israeli
troops as a result of what the UN said was the army´s "indiscriminate
firing into civilian areas".

∑ Israel´s attorney general, Meni Mazuz, has ordered an urgent review
of a government decision, kept secret until this month, to seize
thousands of acres of Palestinian-owned land around East Jerusalem.